Up Here, My Dear
by jessi0129
Summary: This house for him holds cloudy memories, but maybe one day looking back on his life, the memory of this night on top of it's roof under the sky, won't be so starless


They were laying on the roof looking up at the cloudy night sky. The visible masses of condensed water vapor were floating peacefully. Miles above the ground, but even farther away from their companions in the sky, burning brightly millions of light years beyond, the stars flickers and danced to a rhythm that no man had ever heard before.

It had been years since he had lied up here in the quiet of the night. Long ago when he was just a young boy with dreams bigger than he could have imagined, he and his sister spent whole hours of darkness on top this roof. Speaking of things they never dared tell anyone else.

Now, he was lying here with a man he only meet a short while ago, but a man that had quickly become someone so overwhelmingly important to him that even the thought of it scared him.

Terrified of how badly his man could destroy him. Tear his whole life apart, everything he had accomplished could be easily disintegrated in this mans hands.

To feel as if you could and would leave everything behind for one person was a disorienting feeling. Could give up and let yourself and all you desire and own be given to another is not something he ever believed he was capable of doing for anyone. But, next to him is a man who has succeed in making him feel as if he could.

"You have not been here in awhile."

It was more of a statement than a question. Erik already knew the answer, the way he had moved around the house when they had first arrived a few weeks ago. How he avoided certain rooms and welcomed and became nostalgic with others.

"I have not, but you already knew that." he replied, lips curling up slightly as Erik rolled his head to look at him. He continued to stare up at the sky as he elaborated. "There are a great many memories from this house that I hold dear, but there are also quite a few that I wish to never think of again."

Out of the corner of his eye his saw Erik's brow furrow in confusion. He knew how Erik thought of him when it came to his background and he did not blame him on his assumptions, but as he had said just this afternoon, there is also so much more to him than Erik knew.

"How can one have a childhood with sadness and poor memories when they lived and grew up in a home like this?"

"Ah," He smiled again, finally rolling his head to look back at Erik. "but, that is where you are wrong, my friend. This is and was not a home, but only a house."

Erik was quiet, his eyes flicking all over his face as if it would reveal the answer, as if it would show him how a boy with such privilege could ever have a complaint of the world. "Tell me." He eventually relented.

"To cavil about my childhood to you would be a disrespect."

"It is not. I wish to know. We are not here to compare wounds and then challenge who has hurt the most. Your pain is as real as anyone else's, including mine."

Now it was his turn to search his friends face. Erik had always been sharp edged. Hard to dull down and soften, not that he wished to, oh no. He enjoyed Erik exactly how he was. His life experience, however tragic, has made this man who he is and they are partly the reason he has fallen for him so deeply. _Thank you, my friend. You do not know what that means coming from you. _

Erik's lips twitched from his mental whispers. _Of course. _He replied with more clarity than he had ever heard from anyone else.

Sighing, he rolled his head back to look back up at the night sky. The clouds that were there before had been replaced with new ones. All moving in a slow steady stream, trying to make their way across the coast to the Long Island Sound before sunrise. "My mother was indisposed after my father passed and she married Kurt. She could not be bothered. Wished to be left her drink and silence."

"She was neglectful." Erik stated matter-of-factly. He also thought he heard a bit of anger in his voice but he would only pass that off as wishful thinking. Erik couldn't possibly care enough to become angry over something so trivial.

All the same, he hummed his agreement. "I was young, looking back on it I can see and understand her pain."

"That does not excuse her for not giving you what you need."

He gave a self-deprecating laugh, "Yes, well. I got all the companionship I needed from, Raven. She was my savior." He paused for a moment thinking of the night he found Raven, a promise flicking across his mind. "My only regret was that she had to endure Kurt and his venom. His son, Cain, my stepbrother, was no better. I once told Raven that she could leave and I would not blame her but she refused and stayed with me through it all."

"She is strong." Continuing after a pause. "And, so are you."

He rolled over completely on his side to look at his friend, whose head was still tilted to look at him. "I feel like a prat complaining to you about all this."

"I already told you. You do not have to." Erik shifted onto his side as well, which caused him to end up much closer. Their face mere inches apart. "I feel honored to be trusted by you." Reaching out, Erik laid his hand on top of the hand he had balled up near his stomach.

At the touch he felt his entire body begin to tingle. "I do trust you. I trust you with everything, Erik."

"Everything?" He smirked. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"I don't care. It's how I feel." He slipped. He had not meant to say something so akin to a confession, something so intimate.

"How you feel." Erik whispered, hand closing tighter around his fisted one. "How do you feel?"

_I love you. I need you. Stay, please and never leave? _All things he couldn't say but all things he felt.

"I feel I can tell you anything, my friend. I feel-"

"_That_ is not what I meant." Erik interrupted his misleadings.

"W-well, what could you have possibly meant?" He blinked rapidly as if completely caught off guard by what Erik was insinuating.

Erik shook his head. "Oh, Charles, you have no idea how loudly you have been projecting." And, as quick as lighting, Erik had a hand wrapped around the back of his neck and his lips smashed his own.

He protested out of shock but then relented to it as if he was giving up a fight he would not win but in reality it was the one thing he would never fight against because he was one thing he wanted most in this world.

Atop the roof of the house that held some of his darkest memories and most of his pain. He found himself loving and being loved by a man whose own darkness consumed him and humbled him

Erik was the second person in the world he had trusted with everything. The second but the most important. Always. No matter what.

_Charles?_ Her voice called from the open window of his bedroom below.

_Up here, my dear._


End file.
